


Running Down to the Riptide

by Silberias



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, adding Oberyn to tragedy averts tragedies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2014-11-12
Packaged: 2018-02-25 03:07:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2606171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silberias/pseuds/Silberias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spying Lyanna Stark sparring against his eldest girl, Oberyn sees the woman he's wanted--one who loves life and loves Obara and does not flinch at the sight of a man trailing three children behind him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running Down to the Riptide

**Author's Note:**

> SO THIS IS A ONESHOT. A tiny plotbunny that is a oneshot! I'm sorry that there isn't really anything else!

He found her among the tents, playing with Obara--each holding a stick, parrying and feinting like children did in the Water Gardens. Her dark hair, running down her back like the headwaters of the Rhoyne--turbulent and untamed--flew behind her as she spun. His daughter was laughing and grinning as she hadn't since they'd left Sunspear. Nymeria walked beside him to the left, fidgeting in the warm dress the Septa had put her in. To his right were Sarella and Tyene, holding hands to keep from being lost in the crowd.

"Have you struck fear into Northron hearts, my absent Daughter?" he called, ambling slowly to show he was in no way going to take his daughter from her game. Obara was twelve and had only been in his house for a little under four years. She felt she had much to prove and he regretted the harsh manner in which he had collected her from her mother--a whore who refused to live in Sunspear and mother his three other children as he'd offered her.

"My lady I did not realize your family wasn't informed of your absence--we shall have to escape," the lady said, grabbing Obara's chubby hand and trotting away in the direction of the lake. His daughter cast one look behind her at him and he nodded, smiling as the pale Northron beauty took his firstborn away. The younger three girls would grow up beauties but Obara took after him--she would grow into a sturdy frame built for duels and war as he was.

It was not her fault he wanted to take her new friend to his bed.

"Her name is Lyanna of House Stark, my Lord," a low voice said from a nearby tent. Turning Oberyn met the somber gray eyes of Eddard and Brandon Stark. His grin was easy enough then, thinking of Obara--his Obara who he wanted to give a mother to more than he wanted another babe in his arms--and her easy smile just now.

"I would have her be Lyanna of House Martell, my Lords," he replied, walking his children towards the tent. It was unseasonably warm--though he knew this was no Summer. Winter was yet upon them and as he glimpsed yet more Starks he knew that they shared his sentiments.

There were long looks--how Lady Lyanna hadn't inherited their long faces to match the long looks he wondered?--exchanged between the men. A silent conversation then, like the ones he would have with Doran over the heads of everyone outside of their world. They were each from families stationed at the edge of the world.

"Father, you said you would honor Lyanna's wishes if a Prince was offered up," Brandon Stark finally called to someone deeper in the tent. His gaze was cool and assessing as he glanced back at Oberyn.

"Will a Prince of Dorne do?"

 

* * *

 

"That was your father?" Obara nodded and kept blocking the stick with her own, hoping that her father's appearance, trailing her sisters behind him, wouldn't scare away her new friend. There was something in his eyes as he'd looked at Ana, something both warm and calculating.

"He is very handsome--and obviously your father. You both smile the same way," Ana said, giggling as she had to stumble back a few steps from Obara's playful attacks. It was a different comparison than she was usually given--her eyes were her father's, and while that was true it felt less true when it was also given to Tyene, fair and saintly Tyene.

She was glad she'd seen Ana practicing stances behind one of the tents for she'd been bored to tears. Obara hadn't wanted anything but to learn the arts of war and weaponry since the day her father had made her choose between himself and her mother. Mother hadn't had much time for her but had tried to provide what was best. Princess Mellario was the only motherly figure in her life now.

"He doesn't always smile. But--but he's a good man," she rushed out, hoping that this older girl would somehow stay near her in this cold place called Harrenhal. She was a whore's daughter and her youngest sister was just recently three--and Tyene's mother had been fifteen when she'd borne her. Ana must be about that age, and if becoming Father's paramour kept Ana near then Obara wanted it done. Her sisters hadn't grown up behind a curtain in a whore's entertaining room in a brothel--destined to become whores or pickpockets themselves--and so the idea of a Lady so young in her father's bed did not bother her. 

"I would imagine not. Good times do not last forever, good health and spirits either. Good men know that. If your father knows that, then he's a good man."

"Will you dine with us tonight? I'm sure he wouldn't mind."

Ana was silent, parrying easily--her footwork not so good as Obara's but decent. Obara tried to tamp down her disappointment--this beautiful lady with dark hair wouldn't want to sup with the plain bastard daughter of Oberyn Martell. Few did when they met or knew her father's name.

"I was rather hoping I would invite your family to dine with mine. If your lady mother doesn't object, of course," Ana said finally, a smile gracing her face and lighting Obara's face with her own returning smile. Someone to spar with aside from Father's squires--she could barely contain her excitement at the thought of it.

"My father is not married, we are bastards all of us." The final test--those who detested bastards were not welcome in her father's tents, that much she well knew. If Ana turned pale--paler?--at the thought then Obara would have to give her friend up. Father loved his daughters too much to saddle them with those who disliked their birth.

"All the more reason to sup with us, Obara!" Ana said with a laugh, "for men are clueless at planning meals. I have taken pity on my father and brothers, if we let the cooks know now then they shall be able to feed your father and sisters easily enough. Come!" Ana dropped her improvised sword to the ground and linked her arm with Obara's, walking towards the tents once more. At twelve she was of a height with Ana--she would be as tall as her father, for she was already built like him.

"Where shall I send my invitation, Obara? And to whom?"

"The Queen's tents, to Prince Oberyn of House Nymeros Martell," Obara said softly, her voice hesitant as she looked over at Ana. Ana's smile was warm and she clutched Obara's hand tighter as she nodded.

"We are having roasted pig with vegetables grown in Riverrun by my brother's betrothed."

"I shall ask Aunt-- _Queen Elia_ if we might bring lemoncakes with us, for after supper. Father might also bring some wine, he--he dislikes everything but Dornish."

 

* * *

 

It had been decided after supper between himself and Lyanna--honestly some time after supper. The middle of the night really. She'd taken him riding, him holding on for dear life as she guided her stallion through moonlit fields surrounding Harrenhal. She settled them three miles from the site of the tourney, pinning his shoulders to the ground and sitting on his middle. Oh but she was hot and damp there...

"How old are you, lover?"

"Seven and ten, soon to be sold off to the Stormlands to a man who lies unless a prince rescues me--and you?"

"Six and twenty, a father four times, and I would take you as a lover save for the fact that your brothers would peel my ears from my head," he laughed, spanning his hands on her hips for he wouldn't move his shoulders from her grip while she held him.

"Take me as a wife, then, and rescue me _Prince_ ," she said, sliding one hand into his hair and leaning in to kiss him. Inexperienced, he could tell, but motivated and willing. He liked motivation and willingness--he liked them rather a lot. On the arm she'd freed he managed to prop himself up enough to roll them over, putting her underneath his body.

"Take my daughters as your own and give them true names, then," he countered, moaning when she rolled her hips up to his. The moonlight made her skin look silver, her hair darkest black, and her eyes glitter.

"Don't sell them like chattel to boors and I shall call each of them Princess," she said, her kisses warm and full as he worked her skirts up her legs.

"Done," he replied, rearing up away from her to give his full attention to her flower, having made fast work of her smallclothes. They were far enough from the camp that if she screamed her climax no one would hear them. He would kill any man who dared take her from him--and Doran's wife occasionally grew lonely, so far from cold, blustery Norvos. Winterfell was cold and blustery, he'd been told, and so Lyanna would make an apt companion in homesickness at least.

 

 

* * *

 

And so the world, another one with different deaths, turned on. Lyanna Stark wed Oberyn Nymeros Martell, going before seven different septons seven different times to show her earnest desire to give her bastard stepchildren the true name of their father and name her as their mother. When Rhaegar Targaryen sent his wife back to Dorne, spurning the children he'd had by her for the beauty and promises of twins and triplets whispered in his ear by Cersei Lannister, it was Lyanna who nursed the wounds words had left in Princess Elia.

It was Oberyn and Lyanna who raised their children--for he got a full six on her eventually--to protect delicate Elia, Rhaenys, and Aegon from the schemes of the Targaryens in the Capitol. Letters asking for the return of the royal children were curtly replied to that in Dorne once a wifely bond was broken any children from the union were declared fatherless children of their mother's House. Rhaenys and Aegon grew up as Martells--Rhaenys promised to a man of House Dalt, Aegon to Princess Arianne, and war did not come to Westeros for many years. 

**Author's Note:**

> How did we like it? Tell tell!


End file.
